Flexibility in large scale projects

Abstract

Large Scale Projects are invariably the concern of a group of people, who come together for the duration of the development. A number of institutions may have an interest in the project outcome and want to influence its development, consultants may be assigned to contribute expertise to the development and contractors may be engaged to perform implementation roles such as construction. These participants form relationships which, because of the scale of the project are complex and difficult to define. Decisions are taken and large scale projects implemented but the challenges associated with the development of large scale projects are enormous and error costs are often high. Learning from the mistakes in previous large scale projects has often proved inadequate in meeting the complexity of subsequent developments. This research approaches the problem by viewing the group concerned with a large scale development as an organisation. The organisational challenge addressed in the research is the provision of functional capacity to support the development and selection of options and the control of implementation. Flexibility is defined as inversely related to organisational constraint, which impedes communication and control. It is the view of this research that when flexibility is lost,functional capacity is reduced and the probability of error increased. As the primary concern is communication and control, cybernetics has been chosen an appropriate background for the development of a conceptual framework. Application of the framework to a case study has indicated that there is an association between the degree of flexibility as defined and undesirable outcomes during the development of a large scale project.